WARTIME SUITS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22475, 9 January 1943, Page 6

WARTIME SUITS

Few Obvious Changes Same Styles And Prices

All men’s suits, free from the restrictions imposed by recent regulations, must be completed by January 31, says the “New Zealand Herald,” Auckland. There are plenty of orders in hand, but time is definitely the essence of the contract in this case.

In the higher class zone of tailoring, a fairly large number of what might be called potential orders will not be carried out owing to the shortage of cloth in suit lengths. In this particular trade, the customer wants a distinctive suit. As far as cloth is concerned, it must be individual, or almost so. The trade has catered for this demand, but now the variety of suit length cloth is so limited that the customer who often has a fair wardrobe declines to select from the material available.

It is only in the range of cloth that New Zealand’s war suit, especially in the bespoke trade, will show any marked variation from the rule. Suits of a wide price range will be manufactured. but, as a master tailor remarked yesterday, the only visible change in the appearance of most of them will be the absence of trouser cuffs, and of the buttons and blind button-holes on the sleeves.

“In every other respect, my suits and those of the bespoke tailors,” he said, “will be the same as in the past. The coat pocket flap will disappear, but it has already been eliminated by some tailors. The work and fitting will be the same, and prices in my shop, and I imagine everywhere else, will be the same, subject only to the price of material.” Little Material Saved

Neither material nor labour, he explained. would be greatly saved by the regulation suit. The elimination of the trouser cuff would not save any material, seeing that the cuffless trouser leg, which had to fit lower on the shoe, had to be cut lin. longer than that providing for a cuff. The labour saving through the cutting out of the sleeve buttons was trifling. The banning of the coat pocket flap was offset by the need to use a facing of the material inside the pocket. In factories, it was stated, some slight saving of material could be effected, as large bolts of cloth were used in mass production. There was an impression abroad, said the tailor, that the regulation suit would be obviously crude. This may have been heightened by the Australian reference to the “giggle suit” and to criticism of the British war suit, which, it should be realised, had no waistcoat. This idea, however, was erroneous as far as New Zealand was concerned. Suits of the varying standards would look very much the same, and would cost about the same. However, the range of materials would be narrower, particularly in the higher priced field. It would be in material rather than in make and style that regimentation would be most evident. There would be no double-breasted suits, of course, but, comparatively speaking, they had been rare.